August 2010

30 August 2010

Last
week, my friend Dylan's cat Kato was -- they think -- poisoned by some
really f-ed up person in their neighborhood. He hung on for over a
week, but today his kidneys stopped functioning and they had to decide
to let him go. Now they're left with some pretty steep vet bills, and
are taking up an online collectionto help with those. If you can help out and are so motivated, please do!

21 August 2010

"WASHINGTON (AFP) – US troops will still be in combat and taking on Islamist militants in Iraq even as the American military moves to an "advise and assist" role with a smaller force, officials said Thursday." But wait, there's more...

“To make up for a scaled back US military force, Washington meanwhile plans to rely on large numbers of private security contractors, US officials said Thursday.

"The State Department said it will double the number of contractors it employs in Iraq to about 7,000.”

20 August 2010

Tomorrow is election day in Australia, which means that Australians living in the US can vote today. As fate would have it, I was at the Australian consulate today and got to see a bunch of them voting. I also saw a list of the political parties from which voters could choose. Check out some of the political parties on the ballot in Australia:

Communist

The Climate Skeptics

Shooters and Fishers

Australian Sex Party

Socialist Equality Party

Non-custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)

Family First

Careers Alliance

There were also the ones you'd expect: Labor, Christian Democratic Party, Liberals/Nationals, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, etc. etc. While I'm sure voting is as pointless an activity
in Australia as it is in the US, it sure looks like it's a lot more fun over
there.

The interview I did earlier this week on AntiWar Radio is up now. From the description:

"Bretigne Shaffer, author of the article
“Saving Women and Preventing Genocide: The Real Reasons We’re in
Afghanistan Now,” discusses the ridiculous notion of harmonious
societies created by foreign occupation armies, a reminder that Aisha’s mutilation
by Taliban decree happened eight years into the “protective” U.S.
occupation, the very real WSJ divide between the editorial and news
divisions, the American predilection to take harmful action rather than
no action and how economic prosperity is generally beneficial to the
plight of women (as well as everyone else)."

And if you haven't made a donation to AntiWar.com, please consider doing so. It's one of the very few organizations with a consistent anti-war stance, and does a fabulous job of getting the relevant news and information out there. They're in the middle of their pledge drive now and have another $34,000 or so to raise. There are matching funds if you donate by Aug. 23rd!

09 August 2010

So now the
cheerleaders for war would have us believe that they are more concerned
for the welfare of Afghan civilians than are those who wish to end
the US occupation.

First we have
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sanctimoniously imploring
the editors of Wikileaks not to post more information that the administration
believes might endanger the lives of local Afghan informants:

"You
have Taliban spokesmen in the region today saying they're combing
through those documents to find people that are cooperating with
American and international forces," said
Gibbs. "They're looking through those for names, they said
they know how to punish those people."

Next, there
is Time magazine, a recent
cover of which was adorned with the badly mutilated face of
a young woman and the headline "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan."
(A statement, not a question.) As if the implicit pitch for more
war as a solution to violence against women did not provide enough
cognitive dissonance, the woman pictured was actually disfigured
by family members at the order of a Taliban official last year
– eight years after US forces entered Afghanistan.

06 August 2010

Today is the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and for the first time ever, the US government has sent an envoy to attend the annual ceremony commemorating the attack. Don’t hold your breath for an apology though. The US government still insists that, while regrettable, the nuclear assault on a civilian population was justified.

It should come as no surprise that the government continues to spout this nonsense. What is disappointing though, is that so many Americans continue to believe it in the face of a historical record that contradicts the government’s various (and transmogrifying) justifications. The primary one, the one that most of us were taught to recite in our government schools, being that dropping the bomb actually saved even more lives, by avoiding a US ground invasion of Japan.

Of course, in addition to grossly exaggerating the numbers of US lives that such an invasion would have cost, this line of reasoning also ignores the fact that the Japanese government was ready to surrender anyway. The only point of contention was the word “unconditional.” The Japanese wanted their emperor to remain as a figurehead, and for him not to be tried for war crimes. These concessions, deemed unacceptable by the Truman administration prior to dropping the bombs, were granted after the war.

For more on the lies used to justify using nuclear weapons against civilians, says historian John Denson:

“The best book, in my opinion, to explode this myth is The Decision to Use the Bomb by Gar Alperovitz, because it not only explains the real reasons the bombs were dropped, but also gives a detailed history of how and why the myth was created that this slaughter of innocent civilians was justified, and therefore morally acceptable.”

The larger issue though, for me, is the whole notion of coming up with rationalizations to justify the murder of innocent people. The first (and least relevant) problem I have with those who are eager to present arguments for why “we had to drop the bomb” or why “we must stay in Iraq” is the conceit that we can ever know with certainty what the repercussions of our actions will be. As historian Ralph Raico points out:

“Establishment writers on World War II often like to deal in lurid speculations. For instance: if the United States had not entered the war, then Hitler would have "conquered the world" (a sad undervaluation of the Red Army, it would appear; moreover, wasn’t it Japan that was trying to "conquer the world"?) and killed untold millions. Now, applying conjectural history in this case: assume that the Pacific war had ended in the way wars customarily do – through negotiation of the terms of surrender. And assume the worst – that the Japanese had adamantly insisted on preserving part of their empire, say, Korea and Formosa, even Manchuria. In that event, it is quite possible that Japan would have been in a position to prevent the Communists from coming to power in China. And that could have meant that the thirty or forty million deaths now attributed to the Maoist regime would not have occurred.”

But the bigger -- and I would think more obvious -- problem is simply the immorality of doing so. If one can defend the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then what can’t one defend? And how can one ever condemn any act by any nation in time of war? As military historian Major General J.F.C. Fuller so eloquently puts it:

“Though to save life is laudable, it in no way justifies the employment of means which run counter to every precept of humanity and the customs of war. Should it do so, then, on the pretext of shortening a war and of saving lives, every imaginable atrocity can be justified.”

Finally, as we remember this unthinkable event and search for ways to prevent such things from happening in the future, let’s remember the words of Avi in “Cryptonomicon”:

“Commemorating the Holocaust is not, not not not not not, the same thing as fighting to prevent future holocausts. Most of the commemorationists are just whiners. They think that if everyone just feels bad about the past holocausts, human nature will magically transform, and no one will want to commit genocide in the... future. ...Instead of trying to educate the potential perpetrators of holocausts, we try to educate the potential victims. They at least will pay some f***ing attention."

Let us take this time to remember the victims of the US government’s violence 65 years ago today, but let us also use this opportunity to remember who the real enemies are. They are not people in foreign lands going about their lives and minding their own business, but those who govern - in foreign lands and at home - and who presume to commit violent acts with impunity under cover of the “necessities of war.” Let us not dream, as a writer for the New York Times imagines commemorators in Hiroshima do, that “the world’s nuclear powers, and particularly the United States, may finally share a desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons.” Let us instead heed Avi’s advice and focus our hopes not on those who perpetrate such horrors but on those with a real interest in ending them.